Speaker of the Georgian Parliament criticized President, accusing her of “threatening the population with bloodshed” and “undermining state institutions” through her refusal to accept the results of parliamentary elections.

“We have seen many bad things during our independence, but this is the first time we have witnessed a president threatening the population with bloodshed… Salome Zourabichvili is using her position to challenge the legitimacy of both elections… By doing so, she has threatened the majority of the population of Georgia with bloodshed if they do not give up the choice made on October 26.

We see President’s attempt to destabilise the country by organising a shameful unrest for the world to witness… At the end of her presidency, Zourabichvili has once again decided not only to dismantle and undermine state institutions, but also to organise a shameful unrest and a farce in the country for the world to see.

The President had faced impeachment procedures in 2023 for her unauthorised foreign visits, she is a violator of the Constitution. Her refusal to recognize the results of the October elections is also a grave political and moral offence.

The main political and moral crime she committed was not recognising the will expressed by the population in the elections, thereby trying to overturn an undesirable and unacceptable result for her”, - said Shalva Papuashvili.

He linked the current political tensions to previous “efforts by foreign forces to influence Georgian politics”, referencing Mikheil Saakashvili’s clandestine return from Ukraine to Georgia ahead of the 2021 municipal elections.

Papuashvili underlined that Government had all the necessary means to prevent the hostile forces from realising their “dark intentions”: “In this matter the main support for the Georgian Government is the Georgian people, who have once again shown, both domestically and abroad, that they understand the processes and have left the radical opposition with only a few hundred supporters”.